Eyes of Truth
by Matrix Refugee
Summary: Declan gets a student with unusual talents and gets so distracted investigating him that he barely notices when Peggy falls for the young man's father. PG13 for violence


+J.M.J.+

**Author's Note:**

This turned into a double crossover between _Mysterious Ways_, and my two unpublished creations: _The Magdalen Man_ (starring Josef "Jake" Jacobi) and its spin-off _The Palest Eye_ (starring Lewin J. Jacobi and featuring his sister Trinity Jacobi-Vachowsky). Special thanks goes to Krystal Raposo, for telling me the ghost story that appears, in altered form, as part of the investigation, and to the Urban Legends Reference Pages of snopes2.com for the parental nightmare. I'd also like to dedicate this to Judy Hodge, my therapist; thanks for saving and changing my life.

**Disclaimer:**

I do not "own" any of the _Mysterious Ways_ characters, which are the property of Peter O'Fallon, CBS, et al.

**Special Note:**

Oh, if you want to make this a real MW experience, find the CD or MP3 of Louis Prima's rendition of the song "Just a Gigolo" and play it as you read the last three scenes. (And yes, Enigma fans, you can listen to "Eyes of Truth" also.)

Eyes of Truth 

By "Matrix Refugee"

Prologue: Two Strangers

A typical morning in the Anthropology 201 class of Professor Declan Dunn: the students dickered and teased each other in the bleacher tiers of desks while the prof struggled to figure out the glitch with the overhead projector before he got on to his presentation.

He thought he had the lens focused finally, when he heard a strange sound, like a loud sniff, close to his desk. He looked up.

An unfamiliar young man stood on the other side of his desk.

"Excuse me," the newcomer asked. "Is this the Anthropology 201 class of Professor Declan Dunn?"

"Yeah, uh, and you are?"

The stranger extended his hand. "My name is Lewin Jacobi. I'm your new transfer student."

"Oh yeah, uh, well, we got plenty of seats, so why don't you get settled. We were about to get started. Hey, folks: I'm almost ready here, so in the meantime, could you introduce yourselves to our new student, Mr. Lewin Jacobi?"

Before the young man turned away to find a seat, Declan got a good look at him. The young newcomer stood maybe a few inches taller than five feet, but his lean, athletic build made him look taller. As he walked across to the seats, he carried himself with an unusual grace, like a dancer. Everything he wore was black: his suit, his tie, even his shirt and the trench coat he carried over one arm. He carried a pair of thick sunglasses in one hand; the other gripped the handles of a black vinyl attaché case. As he found an empty seat in the front bottom tier, he turned his face back to Declan: a thin, intelligent, swarthy face, boyishly good-looking; his solid black clothes tricked the eye so that it made his complexion seem remarkably paler than its true shade. But the face looked not so remarkable as the pair of eyes that looked out of it. Declan had never seen a pair of eyes as pale blue as this kid's eyes. Just the faintest trace of blue tinted the irises; as Mr. Jacobi bowed his head while he settled himself and his things behind his desk, his irises seemed to white out.

Declan shook himself slightly and took a deep breath. _Must be those sleepless nights_, he thought, turning back to his projector. He heard the kids greeting the newcomer and his soft-spoken replies to them.

"Okay, folks, we're in business," Declan announced, firing up the projector. "Today we're gonna focus on seers and prophets as part of our on-going unit, the Anthropology of Religious Expression." He inserted a shot of the ruins of Delphi into the projector. The image on the screen at least looked recognizable. "Any of you who've studied Greek drama and Greek mythology to any extent have probably heard about the Delphic oracle, a priestess of Apollo who allegedly received prophetic messages from the spirits in the underworld rising up through a sulphurous vent near the temple."

Someone snickered in the back row. Declan looked up and sought out the smart aleck.

"Mr. Hickey, did you want to comment?" Of course: the usual scamp had to put in his two cents. A pimply-faced would-be jock raised his hand.

"Yeah, did the oracle give out oatmeal cookies with her messages?" General groans of laughter and a few flung paper wads aimed at the smart aleck greeted this wise remark. Only the new kid remained quiet, but even he wore a slight smile of amusement, which quickly relaxed.

"Not to my knowledge," Declan said with a straight face.

"There were throughout human history, dozens if not hundreds and perhaps thousands of prophets and seers and would-be seers all over the world, in every religious system," Declan continued. "Muslims hail Mohammed as the greatest prophet of Allah and the founder of their religion. Old Testament Judaism preserved the writings of many prophets, this in spite of the fact that many of these prophets seemed to fail in getting their message across to the rulers of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Jesus of Nazareth, the founder of Christianity, foretold the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. John the Evangelist wrote the Apocalypse of the book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament, as a richly imaginative coded prophetic message about his own times and many believe, about future events.

"And today we find dozens of psychics on the radio talks shows and on telephone hotlines, ready to give us for a fee what they promise to be a picture of our future.

"Yet there is a lot more to the role of a seer than foretelling the future. Those of you who have read the chapter I assigned last Thursday, who can name a seer's more basic, objective task?"

A rustle passed in the bleachers; the students looked at each other. A girl stuck her hand up.

"Yes, Miss Whitman?"

"To warn about dangers if people continue following their own selfish desires instead of helping other people?" she asked hopefully.

"That's a very good point and it's close to what I had in mind. But there's another, more objective part."

The newcomer raised his right hand, two fingers extended, the rest curled against his palm. Declan looked at him. The stranger had replaced his dark glasses on his face, which gave him a weirdly anonymous aura.

"Mr. Jacobi?"

"Objectively, a seer's task is to witness to the truth, even when popular opinion finds the truth nasty or unpleasant."

"That was exactly the point I had in mind, Mr. Jacobi.

"Rather than promising continued prosperity and comfort, most often seers could sense somehow, either by a gift, by intuition, or by plain common sense that the status quo could not last unless something changed. Most often because they could spot the storm clouds gathered on the blue horizon, seers were persecuted and even tortured and killed for their objectivity and foresight. The Old Testament prophets were almost routinely scorned and mocked and even tortured for warning the kings against misalliances with other nations. Mohammed had to flee from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution. Jesus Christ was crucified for unmasking the hypocrisy and legalism of the Jewish leaders. Even the Greeks, despite heeding the oracles, ignored the teachings of Socrates, who might be considered a philosophical seer, and ultimately condemned him to die, which he chose rather than live a life of silence in the face of the status quo."

"Guess they wanted them oatmeal cookies," blurted out another kid, next to Hickey in the back row.

"In which case, Mr. Hickey and Mr. Sims, I'll see you after class," Declan said, looking up at them over the frames of his glasses. While the other students groaned, young Jacobi remained a mildly amused sphinx behind his sunglasses.

At the end of class, Declan announced the assignment: "For Thursday, I want each of you to write a three hundred to five hundred word essay on some aspect of this chapter. And no quoting Jean Dixon, people?"

He had his little talk with Hickey and Sims about their continual disruptiveness, but he knew from the smirks on their mugs they took it as a lot of hot air blowing over their heads. He let them go.

He started to lapse into musing before his next class, musing about Emma, wondering why she hadn't returned any of his calls….

He realized a black shadow stood before his desk, then he felt a gaze pierce his soul. Declan looked up.

Lewin Jacobi stood before the desk, his coat slung over on shoulder, his dark glasses sticking out of his shirt pocket.

"Hey, you don't have to hang around, chief," Declan said. "I had to talk only those jerks into the floor."

"I know. I just wanted to know if it was at all possible for me to write my essay on sensitives."

"Sensitives?"

"Yes, they are a particular kind of seer; they've been instrumental in the Catholic Church. They've assisted with exorcisms, they've even detected some abuses of ritual and of the sacraments."

"It sounds more like a topic for a theological paper, but if you can tie it in with the course, I'd be happy to let you write about it."

Mr. Jacobi smiled. "Thank you, Herr Professor." He turned to leave.

"Hey, uh, you from Germany?"

"Yes, I moved here from München, Munich with my family about a month ago. I'm afraid I enrolled late, but I have been reading the textbook to catch up."

"You with the foreign exchange program?"

"No, I transferred here; I live off campus with my family." He leaned closer to Declan, across the desktop and drew in a long breath. Breathing it out, he added, "I don't want to take up more of your time, so I will see you Thursday."

"Sure, sure, no problem."

The young stranger nodded and walked out of the room, quickly and quietly. His footsteps barely rose above the clatter and voices in the hallway.

Declan watched him leave; he shook his head to clear it of the strange aura that surrounded Lewin Jacobi and which still lingered. _Kid must be some really strange Goth type_, he thought. _But he dresses semi-normal…_

"Dr. Fowler, your 11.30 is here," Nurse Mitchell said, putting her head into the open door of Peggy Fowler's office.

"Send him in, please?" Peggy said, looking up from the neat pile of files on her desk.

The nurse stepped away from the doorway, then she stepped back again, allergically before walking away in a hurry.

A small, dark shape moved into the doorway and stood framed there for a long moment, backlit by the light from the hallway.

Peggy stood up and came around from behind her desk. "You can come in, Mr. Jakeoby."

The small man stepped forward and paused. "The name is _Jack_-obi," he said in a deep, resonant voice that filled the corners of the room without booming; a slightly stagy British accent colored his pronunciation.

"I'm sorry; it's a name I haven't seen much, let alone heard."

He chuckled gently, deep in his throat. "You're already forgiven; not the first time I've been mispronounced and it won't be the last."

She pointed her hand to an armchair in front of the desk. "Won't you sit down?"

"Thank you," he said, stepping out of the half-light into the late autumn sunlight that shone from the window. He positioned himself in front of the chair, but he did not lower himself onto it until she sat down in the chair facing his. She got a good look at him.

The first thing she noted: Mr. Jacobi was not handsome. His shortness and his almost bone-thin frame made him look like a thirteen year old from the neck down: he couldn't have stood much more than five feet tall and he looked as if he weighed all of a hundred pounds dripping wet. His head looked too large for the thin neck that supported it and his huge black eyes dominated his swarthy, rat-thin face. His mouth—too wide and too thin—betrayed a twist of cynical sprightliness not undercut by the almost feminine rosiness of his leanly sensual lips. The double-breasted gray three-piece suit he wore seemed chosen to attempt to widen his scrawny torso. But he carried himself with a jaunty, almost lickerous grace. Despite his lack of physical charm, he compensated this with a punctilious neatness that bordered on nattiness. His brown-black hair, hardly thinning and showing only a few strands of gray over his temples, was neatly brushed back from his high forehead. He held his gray leather fedora on his crossed thighs by the brim, but his free hand, the left, lay on the opposite shirt sleeve cuff (pushed back slightly and revealing a dense thatch of black hair on his forearm) as if on display and with good reason: the hand itself looked like the hand of a musician or an artist, the long fingers delicately tapered, the nails neatly trimmed and manicured. This one member of beauty he had obviously taken every opportunity of putting on display.

"So," Peggy began, "what can I do for you, Mr. Jacobi?"

"That's what I would like to know," he replied with an aspirated laugh.

"Well, what has been bothering you the most lately?"

"Life, the universe, and everything—I'll lay my cards on the table: I'm an actor by profession, a father by familial status, a widower by marital status." His left ring finger twitched aside to show the absence of a ring. "I just moved here from Germany a month ago to get a change of scenery; I must admit I'm readjusting well—I grew up in the States."

"Oh? Which part of the country did you come from originally?"

"East coast." His accent suddenly dropped out of earshot. "Awlb'ny, New Yohk." He grinned as if he'd done this on purpose, flashing two even rows of gleaming white teeth.

He quickly sobered. "The acting is going well; I've had several offers recently. My kids are adjusting well to their new surroundings. But to be honest, Dr. Fowler, I'm miserable."

"It's good that you're able to identify exactly how you feel. Many if now most men have difficulty recognizing their feelings and putting a name to them."

"And that's half the battle won."

"Recognizing how you feel and being honest with yourself about these feelings is the biggest step in recovery. Now that you know what you're feeling, can you tell me why you feel this way?"

He looked away. For the first time since he walked into the room, his cocky self-confidence cracked, betraying the insecurity she knew he'd hidden under this mask.

He looked back at her, recovering face if nothing else.

"I lost my wife of twenty five years six years ago."

Peggy took a deep breath. "Yes, that would make you unhappy. It would devastate you. How close were you and your wife?"

He smiled wanly. "As close as the ocean and the shore. Oh, our feelings for each other ebbed and flowed, but we always loved each other. She wasn't my first love and she wasn't my last until I finally came to my senses, but she always loved me in spite of myself and my failings."

"She must have been a very strong woman to love you that way."

"Yeah," he murmured, his American accent cracking through. He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket and blotted his eyes.

"Do you have any children?"

He grinned with delight, eyes dancing. "Seven kids: four girls, three boys."

"My goodness."

"I suppose you'd say we must have been great lovers," he said, raising one bushy eyebrow. "And we were. We made our share of mistakes, but we worked it out by God's grace."

"And that's why you miss her so much. It's normal to feel as if your life has ended when death takes your lover."

He looked straight at her. "Is it normal to cry yourself to sleep every night from sheer loneliness?"

"It's normal to feel loneliness, and night is most often the loneliest time for many people who are grieving a lost loved one. 

"Tell me, what was she like?"

He gave her a trembling smile. "She was everything I'm not, physically and otherwise. She was tall and blonde and buxom, a Valkyrie, but very gentle. She was a good girl, but not without mischief; still, she was good more than she was naughty. I think that's one reason why I loved her so much: her goodness just rubbed off on everyone around her—even yours truly. She could look past my masks and see the real Jake Jacobi hiding behind them. She was the sun and the moon and the North Star to me: she gave me a stability I didn't have otherwise. I guess you'd say she domesticated me."

"It's hard to let go someone that special."

He swallowed hard. "Yes."

"Have you been to grief counseling?"

He wagged his head. "Oh, I've been to a half-dozen therapists. They all told me the same thing. 'You have to move on', and 'You have to let her go', and 'You have to get on with your life'. That woman _was_ my life."

"Have you tried dating another woman since your wife's death?"

He sighed. "Oh, I tried going out with a few, but one just wanted to get horizontal with me."

"And that bothers you?"

He grinned wickedly, his black eyes snapping. "Not at all, that's just the trouble. I'm Catholic: no sex without the sacrament, though I hardly lived up to that before I married Charly. I have young kids I have to give an example to."

"Were there any others?"

He shrugged. "These days it's hard: most women want a career. Do know how difficult it is to find a woman who's genuinely willing to be a mother to your children, not just a stepmother? And it's even harder to find a woman whom my kids will accept."

"What do you mean?"

"Another woman I dated considered herself a computer expert; she used to gab for hours on end about the wonders she had accomplished with her machine. What's worse, she used to put down my daughter Trinity just because Trinny's a hacker, and I mean a cybergoth hacker."

"So what happened?"

"Trinny broke into her machine and dismantled her desktop. For all her expertise, this woman failed when it came to constructing firewalls. I'll admit she'd begun to get on my nerves as well, but I didn't want to get rid of her just then: there were no other prospects on the horizons."

"There will be others, Jake—may I call you that?"

He looked at her with conviction. "Yes. Please."

"You just have to keep looking."

"It's hard when you still have kids not out of the nest. Trinny and her husband Mono live with us and help out with the house payments. Our house is sort of the home base for their Catholic industrial rock band. Lewin, my oldest son, still lives with us when he's not away at figure-skating competitions. He's got a shot at going to the Olympics next year."

"That's wonderful: you must be proud of him."

"I am."

"Tell me about the others."

"That will take a while…Jarek's away at music college. Zenzl helps me with the housework and looking after the youngest ones: the two teenagers Maxim and Agnes. They're always at each other's throats about something. Then there's my youngest girl, Destiny, who just turned seven; we're teaching her at home: she has some medical conditions that caused her to keep missing school days. And she's also painfully shy and the kids used to torment her for it."

He suddenly fell silent and bowed his head, eyelids lowered.

"Is there anything else holding you back, Jake?"

He looked up without looking at her and fumbled with his hat. "My checkered past."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, you know, the potentials run a background check on me and then they find out that I worked for a few years as…" He paused and moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. "Shall we call it…an escort?"

"What circumstances led you to take up this line of work?"

He took a deep breath. "I was young; my parents didn't approve of my going to the New York School of Drama, so they refused to help me monetarily. I couldn't get a job that lasted anywhere else. It was either make money using my body or else starve to death and lose the roof over my head."

"Have you ever been able to explain this to anyone you've dated?"

"No. They wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise. Women these days, they drag all sorts of baggage into a relationship, but they expect perfection from their menfolk."

"Maybe you're really expecting perfection from them."

Jake's brows lowered over his eyes in a frown. He said nothing for several seconds. Then he relaxed his face.

"Checkmate," he said. She knew he blushed even though his dark complexion masked most of the redness that showed in his hollow cheeks. "Sometimes you need to have your nose rubbed in something you've been trying to close your eyes to." He twisted his brows and his mouth into a bizarre expression of mingled embarrassment and self-confusion. "Now that was mixing metaphors."

"Maybe not quite. Sight may be the more rational sense, but the sense of smell speaks to something deeper, more fundamental to our nature even if we aren't aware of it."

"I probably used that metaphor because Lewin, my oldest, has a strong sense of smell even though his eyes are weak, well, sensitive to the light."

"That's very interesting: most people with vision difficulties seem to have stronger hearing; I can't say I've heard of someone with this difficulty having a stronger sense of smell."

Jake shrugged. "He's different; he's himself, which is what we always encouraged him to be."

"It sounds as if you've raised him well."

"Yes, I have, but I sure could use some help with the younger three."

"The right woman is out there for you; it's just a matter of time."

He looked at her in an odd way, his eyelids lowered so that he peered out from under his lashes, his mouth curled in a mysterious smile. "Yes," he said softly. "Time and patience."

1: Sensitive

Thursday morning, the students filed into Declan's classroom, but the first to hand in his essay—on three sheets of laser jet bond paper, typed in 12 point Roman, double spaced—was Lewin Jacobi of the pale eyes.

"Moving from the prophets and seers," Declan began, getting the overhead projector ready, "we come to the realm of ghosts." He stuck a slide under the mirror lens, an early 19th century woodcut of a ghost, a skeletal thing with a wild bush of hair, staring eyes and mouth agape, arms extended, a winding sheet hanging slack about its form. Several of the girls yelped. More than a few of the guys laughed nervously. Lewin maintained the serenity of a small, lean Buddha. "Not very much like the thingamagiggys you see on the Halloween Hallmark cards, is it?"

"No!!!" called out Hickey.

"Sure don't look like Casper," added Sims.

"Quiet up there in the peanut gallery," Declan said, dead sober. "If ghosts actually are the spirits of the dead, there are several theories why they linger. Perhaps they are simply unaware that they are dead. Or maybe they are consoling the living. They might be working off some sort of probation or reform school before they go on into the next life.

"Folklore of many countries frequently features tales of hauntings, including such scenarios as the person meeting a violent death whose ghost lingers, replaying their terrible ends."

Miss Whitman, on the tier above the bottom, stuck up her hand.

"Yes, Miss Whitman?"

"You mean like Hell Hollow over near the old convent on Cloisson Drive? My girl-friend had her car get stalled by that tree…"

"I can't say that I'm aware of that one, but if someone could describe it—briefly." A kid in the center tier waved his hand. "Mr. Chatham?"

"Yeah, about like, the 1850s or something, there was this nun in the old convent that got pregnant, so the other nuns chased her out and stoned her to death. If you go there about midnight, you can hear her screaming. Sometimes you can see something running through the trees and you hear stones hitting her."

Other students started supplying further details, but Declan signaled for quiet.

"Hey, folks, folks, lets share the comments after class, okay?"

Something caught Declan's eye. He thought he saw a blue spark leap up near Lewin Jacobi. He noticed the young man had his sunglasses off. Lewin flared his nostrils, then relaxed them and shook his head slightly, as if clearing his brain. Declan went on with the presentation.

"For next class, folks, I want you to do a little research and find different accounts of 'actual' hauntings—besides Hell Hollow—and bring them in for next Tuesday so we can analyze and class them.

"Mr. Hickey and Mr. Sims, did you remember to bring in the last assignment?"

The two troublemakers looked at each other.

"Uh, well, I…uh…"

Sims at least had something coherent. "I had extra hours at work because someone called in sick."

"Just make sure they're on my desk Tuesday morning. Sharp. And no cheating on the margins."

Young Jacobi lingered after the others. Declan collected his slides and began resorting them; he looked up.

"May I ask your permission to do some field research on Hell Hollow?" the young man asked.

"Uh, yeah sure. But do you think that's a good idea? Someone else is liable to jump on it."

"Perhaps as an outsider, as a foreigner, I can give a more objective account."

"Well, if you think you can."

"My family just moved into the old mansion above the Hollow, so I have ready access to it. I have not heard before that there were any anomalies there, in the Hollow."

"I guess in that case, you're well equipped to examine it."

"Thank you, Herr Professor." Lewin started out. Just outside the doorway, Hickey and Sims accosted him.

"Hey, teacher's pet, what you think you doing?" Hickey said, grabbing Lewin by one shoulder.

"It is nothing that concerns you," Lewin replied calm-voiced.

"Think you wanna know about Hell Hollow, eh? Well, meet us down there Friday night about midnight. We'll show you," Sims threatened.

"I'd be delighted to have you as guides," Lewin said, his resonant voice keeping its calm. "Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me." He shook himself out of Hickey's grasp and walked away down the hall.

The two twerps stared after him. At length, Hickey turned to Sims and said, "What planet you think he came from?"

"I dunno," Sims said. "K-Pax, maybe. Cool as a cucumber on ice!"

Declan fell to musing. He wondered if Emma had covered any ghost stories. Halloween would descend upon them soon and this time of year the news stations usually ran some story about a haunting or a ghost ship …

_Wait a minute, those kids_…he couldn't let them rough up Lewin, the kid looked so frail.

_Naw, it's his problem, let him deal with it._

But those kids outnumbered and outbulked Lewin. Between the two of them, they easily made three of him.

Gotta talk to Peggy, she'd know what to do, how to handle this… 

Later that afternoon, Peggy had just finished up with a late appointment and was checking her voice mail when Declan came to the door of her office.

"Can I come in?" he asked, leaning against the doorjamb."

"Sure, Declan. I was starting to get concerned when I didn't hear from you for so long," she said. The voice mail could wait.

He stepped inside and plopped himself down in the armchair, right where Jake Jacobi had sat a few days before.

"Yeah, I got this new student who just transferred from Germany; the two class pests are roughing him up a little."

"How do you mean?"

"Okay, we're doing this unit on the anthropology of religion and we're covering ghosts and things that go bump in the night and how this ties in with belief in the afterlife. So I assign them to bring in stories of actual hauntings so we can class them according to the various folklore archetypes.

"Well, the two jerks in the class start talking about this haunting in a place they call Hell Hollow. Turns out the new kid's family bought a house near the Hollow and he claims he's never heard anything about it or seen any haunting activity there. So he decides to look into it, then the townies gang up on him after class and promise to make a believer out of him. I dunno; should I just let it go or should I step in? The townies are bigger than this new kid and it's like they're bullying him."

"How is this young man handling the situation?"

"That's another funny part: they roughed him up a bit outside the classroom door right after class, but he took it like a trooper. Didn't even bat an eyelash, like it happens to him all the time."

"It could be that he's either very emotionally balanced, or he's scared and he's using this as reverse psychology, to reassure himself he's in control, or to make the bullies think they can't frighten him.

"Have you ever looked into investigating this haunting?"

"No, it's probably just an urban legend."

Peggy looked at him dead on. "That doesn't sound like the Declan I know."

He looked around, annoyed. "Okay, Okay, I'm still sore about Emma going away to Alaska. What, are you gonna prescribe me a nice little investigation to help me get my mind off it, Dr. Fowler?"

"No. You have to make that decision yourself."

Early that evening, Declan sat in his office-digs in the residential wing of the Anthropology Department, grading papers from two weeks ago. A shadow approached the open door. He looked up.

"Hey, Miranda," he said, spotting Miranda Finkelstein, who stood just visible in the shadows.

"Hi," she said in her usual soft-spoken deadpan. "I saw your light on and I thought I'd check in with you."

"I'm glad you did. Listen, you know of anything about a place called Hell Hollow? It's supposed to be haunted."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, you mean that low spot on Cloisson Drive, way out in the boonies?"

"I guess. I didn't hear anything about it until today. Could you dig up all the info you can find on it? I need it by tomorrow afternoon."

She shrugged. "No problem. I'll get on it tonight." A pale smirk crossed her face as she turned and glided away.

Friday afternoon, Declan caught up with Sims, the more normal of the dynamic duo.

"Hey, I hear you're taking the new kid, Lewin Jacobi, to Hell Hollow tonight."

"Well, uh," the kid's eyes swung right and left as if he'd been caught in the act. "Yeah, we're just helpin' him with his research, y'know, walk him through it, hold his hand in case he gets scared. We ain't gonna hurt him, honest, Prof."

"I was just wondering if I could join you guys."

"Well, uh, okay, I guess."

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna get you in trouble. I just research mysterious phenomena.

The kid's eyes brightened with realization. "Oh yeah, you were in cahoots with that reporter-lady on the news, trackin' those weird stories like the 19s in the earthquake and the healin' baby." Sims looked around. "Y' gonna get her on this?"

"Uh, no, she's out of town for a while."

"Oh, she dumped you already?"

"No, she's just doing her job."

"Suuurrre," the kid grinned. "See you in the Hollow about midnight, Prof?"

"I'll be there."

A few minutes later, Declan went into his office and found Miranda waiting for him.

"I checked out the Hell Hollow story," she said. "Most of it's oral tradition and there's at least five different versions of the 'true story'. One account says that on certain nights, especially the week before Halloween, the ground opens up and you can see all the way down into hell. Another says that the nun, or whatever she is, hangs herself from a big oak tree. Another says her lover comes galloping by on a horse to carry her away; there's a variation on that one: they say he either gets knocked off his horse riding into a low branch that juts over the road—which is sometimes the branch she's hanging from. And they also say that branch isn't there in the daylight. Or, they say you can hear someone shooting at them and both lovers fall to the ground shot through."

"But is there any evidence that it happened?"

"I'll have to check with the historical society on that one. But I found out a few facts."

"Like what?"

"The nuns ran a kind of halfway house for prostitutes at one point."

"So does that have anything to do with it?"

"Well, remember the urban legend about Maria Monk and all her blatherings?"

"Yeah, I've heard of her, but what does she have to do with this?"

Miranda smirked. "She was in a similar halfway house, and for whatever reason, she fabricated her claims against the convent; we might be dealing with another Maria Monk—with ghosts."

Later that afternoon, Declan drove to Cloisson Drive. He parked his truck in a sandy half-circle by the side of the road on the crest of the hill above the Hollow. He walked down the slope, past the old convent behind its high wrought-iron fence.

The hollow lay in a wooded area down the slope from the convent. It looked more like a ravine than a hollow; time and vegetation has softened its edges over the years. Directly across the road stood a huge, gnarled oak tree. _Must be the infamous hanging tree,_ he thought. No branches jutted out over the road itself, but one large branch ran parallel with it. _Take darkness, add a little excitement and an active imagination, find the square root of an optical illusion and instant magic branch._

Satisfied, he walked back to his truck and went back home.

At 11.30, he drove back to the Hollow and parked in the sandy circle and sat back to watch.

Hardly five minutes had passed when another truck full of kids roared past him and screeched to a stop, pulling into the bushes. The kids—he recognized Hickey, Miss Whitman and a few other townies—bundled out of the truck.

"Hurry up, guys, he'll be here any minute," Hickey yelled, leading the mob down the slope.

"How do you know?" some other guy retorted, lugging a bag.

"He lives just over the hill in the old Bennett house. Come on!" Hickey yelled.

_Great, enter the "ghosts",_ thought Declan. _The haunting must not be as active as it used to be._

A few minutes later, Sims and Lewin came walking over the crest of the hill. Declan climbed out of the cab of his truck.

"Hey, Prof!" Sims cried, shining a flashlight right into Declan's eyes. "You made it."

"Yeah, I got here about a half an hour ago."

Sims rubbed his hands together. "So, you ready for some action?"

"I'm ready to see what all the excitement is about," Lewin said. He wore his usual trench coat over a black mock turtleneck jersey and black chinos tucked into what in the dark looked like combat shoes.

"Okay, let's go." Sims led them down the slope. The wind had picked up and rustled the remaining leaves on the trees around them. The bare branches overhead writhed against the sky across which ragged clouds scudded, cutting across the moon and the few cold stars. They walked three abreast, Lewin in the middle, his pale eyes slitted, his nostrils flared, breathing deep.

Once they got up to the convent, Sims stopped and caught Lewin by the arm. With the hand that held the flashlight, he pointed down the road. The beam shone for a moment on the trunk of the oak tree.

"There's the tree," he said.

The flashlight cut out. A heavy mist rose from the hollow. Something screamed near the iron fence. A shape wearing a black veil and a white gown over a swollen belly ran across the road. A crowd in black followed at her heels, throwing rocks at the form and shouting curses and obscenities. The figure in white ran toward the tree and took a rope from its high waist. It twisted the rope into a noose and threw the other end around a low branch of the tree.

Another figure, a man, ran up to the figure in white and pulled her down.

A third figure materialized out of the shadows, a man in an old-fashioned cassock wielding a shotgun. He fired at the two figures under the tree. They fell to the ground.

Then all the shadows seemed to melt into the bushes.

Something else lunged out of the night, out of the depths of the hollow, which had begun to glow orange with flames, something that glowed itself like a flaming demon out of hell.

"It's gonna get us!" Sims yelled, grabbing Lewin and Declan both by the arms and trying to drag them back up the road. Declan shook the kid's hand off.

Lewin freed himself with a sudden wrench and stood firm in the center of the road. The monster suddenly came to a halt a few feet away from him. The kid under the black sheet with the simulated bowl of flames on his head roared at Lewin, trying to scare him, but the small young man held his ground.

Declan looked into Lewin's face. The young man wore a look of utter calm, his eyelids relaxed over his pallid eyes. His nostrils flared and relaxed rhythmically with his breathing.

Declan stared: a bluish light that didn't seem to come from anywhere flickered over the surface of Lewin's right eye.

Lewin reached into the bosom of his shirt and pulled out a wooden crucifix on a chain about his neck.

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, tell me your name and from whence you come!" he cried. The wind rose and wailed in the treetops as if it answered.

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I command you, Chrisabel Jones, to tell me, yes or no, were you a novice?" The wind screamed among the pine trees like a suffering soul.

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I command you, Chrisabel Jones, to tell me how you died. Did you hang yourself?"

No words answered his question, but the wind still shrieked in the treetops and washed through their ears, a continuous treble scream over a ground bass note. The fake spooks had crept out of the bushes and stood by the roadside, staring at the young stranger who seemed to make the spirits and the elements obey him.

"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I command you, Chrisabel Jones to reveal to me the name of your killer and what he was to you?" The wind shrieked almost deafeningly and subsided. The trees swung violently, branches breaking from them showering the people below. Then the trees rocked into stillness.

Lewin spoke again, this time in a soft voice that just caressed the sudden quiet: "_Requiem in aeternam, Domine. Et lux perpetua luceat eis._"

The mischief-makers came out of the shadows. Lewin replaced his crucifix under his shirt.

"Hey," said Hickey, the goon with the shotgun. "What was all that for, small-fry?"

"I was only conversing with the troubled soul that haunts this place," he replied, matter-of-factly.

"You mean you, like, spoke to it?" someone asked.

"Cool! Can you tell me anything about my Aunt Martha who died?" another twit asked.

"Only if the soul of your Aunt Martha crosses my path first," Lewin replied. "I'm a sensitive, not a medium."

The others all started talking at once in hushed voices. Lewin turned away from them and walked up to Declan. Sims went to join his friends and help with the teardown.

"Is there anything you want to say, Lewin?" Declan asked.

"You are the only one I can speak to here, regarding these things," Lewin said, looking up at him with trust in his eyes. He paused and drew in a long breath.

"Her name was Chrisabel Jones. She had been a showgirl in a saloon in…1860-something. She tired of it; tired of the men her uncle sold her to for an hour or a night. She escaped him and went to hide with the Sisters of Charity here in this convent. She hadn't even finished school, so the Sisters let her study at the small girls' school they had, even though that meant she had to sit with girls in their early teens and she was twenty-six, a grown woman back then. They teased her unmercifully, but the Sisters would not allow it.

"Then she found out she was with child, and the word got around of what she had been. Some of the bigger girls in the school threw rocks at her and called her a harlot, but…Josef du Lac, the convent gardener, drove them off. He promised to marry her, though she was young enough to be his daughter.

"Then her uncle caught up with her. He tried to drag her away, but she fought him, even in her condition. Josef came and tried to drag him off her, but the uncle pulled a pistol from his coat pocket and shot the old man. Chrisabel went mad with grief and tried to turn the gun on her uncle, but he struck her across the face and choked her to death. He strung her up from that oak tree as an example, but the Sisters and the chaplain, Father Theroux, had heard all the commotion. They arrived too late to save the victims, but not too late for them to surround the murderer and have him brought to justice. He hung for it, but Chrisabel's soul was so traumatized by all this she lingered behind all these years."

"How do you know all this?"

Lewin shrugged. "I asked her."  
  


2: How Could He Know?

Monday afternoon, Miranda brought a few printouts to Declan's office. "I found everything I could about the ghost in Hell Hollow."

Declan took the printouts and read them over. He barely had to read far before he realized the account matched Lewin's story, albeit in greater detail.

"Whoa," he murmured.

"What?" Miranda asked.

"This is exactly what Lewin told me in the Hollow Friday night."

"What do you mean?"

"He spoke to the ghost: he ordered it to speak to him and it must have. I didn't hear a thing, but he told me this whole story about this girl, Chrisabel Jones."

"He could have read about it."

"He couldn't have, he just moved here from Germany a month ago."

"Well, maybe he's psychic. I could run a Rhine test with him."

"I'll talk to him when I see him tomorrow."

Tuesday morning, the hallway still buzzed with talk about Lewin Jacobi. Shelly Whitman and two of her friends, Karen and Linda, stood in a knot outside the classroom door.

"If I knew he was for real, I wouldn't have gone along when Jay asked me," Shelly said.

"What do you mean, for real?" asked Linda.

"That Lewin Jacobi, he's psychic," Shelly said. "He saw the real ghost and he talked to it."

"You're foolin', there's no such thing as psychics," Karen retorted.

"Nuh-uh, he talked to it. He called it Chrisabel or something."

"He looks like he might be psychic," Linda said. "It's his eyes."

"I don't know about him being psychic, but I'll say he's got the strangest eyes I've ever seen. They go right through you, but he's so gentle."

"He kinda looks like Keanu Reeves, only shorter and darker," Linda said.

"I wonder if he's gay," Karen said.

"Who, Keanu?" Linda asked.

"No, silly, Lewin Jacobi."

Shelly looked down the hallway; Lewin approached, the crowd of students parting before him.

"Here he comes," Shelly said. "You girls scram, I gotta talk to him—in private."

"Ooooh!" Linda cried, crossing her eyes and giggling.

"Tell us if he _is _or _is_n't, right, Shelly?" Karen said.

"Okay, okay, I will, now go!" Shelly said, shooing them away.

Lewin came up to her. She smiled at him.

"Hello, Lewin."

He looked at her, slightly surprised. "Oh, hello…I believe I didn't catch your name, Miss…?"

"Shelly, just call me Shelly."

"Shelly, ah, that is a beautiful name."

"Thank you. Listen, Lew—may I call you Lew?"

He tilted his head slightly. "Certainly."

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry about Friday night. If I'd known you were, like, psychic or…well…"

He smiled at her gently. "It's all right, go on."

"If I knew, I wouldn't have gone along with the guys. I'm sorry."

"It's all right. No harm has been done. We all do foolish things when we are young and we want to fit in with the 'in' crowd."

"Yeah, I guess so. I'll buy you lunch to make it up. My treat?"

"Yes, thank you." He pushed up the cuff of his coat sleeve and looked at his watch. "It's almost time for class. Shall we go in?"

"Sure." He pushed open the door for her and held it open. "Gee, thanks; and who says chivalry is dead?"  Lewin smiled and tucked his head modestly.

Jake showed up in Peggy's office a whole five minutes early. He still wore his conservative gray suit, but he had left his collar open.

"Sometimes I feel as though nobody can know what it's like to lose the one person who gave you a reason to mend your ways besides changing them." Jake said.

"There is a difference, and it's good that you know that difference. But there are probably more people than you think, who feel very much the same." She felt something pricking in her own heart. She refocused herself: she had a client…

Jake studied her face for a moment. "Why do I have the feeling that those words are more than psychologist's rhetoric? Or am I treading on hallowed ground?"

"I'm afraid you are; it's okay."

"I know better than to pry."

"Have you considered joining a singles' group?"

He snorted loudly and rolled his eyes. "Funny you should ask: I went to one at our new parish this past weekend."

"And how did it go?"

"Dreadful. The women there ranged from sixteen to seventy."

"Too many to choose from?"

"Yes, I might like a lot to chose from…but not that many. And like I said, most of the ones I found interesting were more interested in their career…oh, and then there's the sixteen year old who probably has a crush on me now."

"What makes you say that?"

"She told me I look like Richard Gere."

"And that bothers you?"

"Yes, because I know I don't look anything like him. And if she thinks she Winona Ryder, she has another thought coming. I know the type."

"What do you mean?"

"They're looking for a father. Well, Trinny wouldn't want another younger sister. She and her blood sister Agnes barely get along as it is."

"How do they not get along?"

"Ag blames Trinny for Charly's death. Charly never approved of Trinny's music or her hacking. But they made it up to each other in the end."

"Does Agnes know?"

"Yes, but she doesn't believe it."

"What about your other daughters? I know you talked about two other girls; how do they get along?"

"Trinny and Zenzl get along perfectly: they're such diametric opposites they have few areas where they could possibly clash. Trin has modeled for Zenz's paintings more than a few times, when Zenzl had a commission for a sci-fi cover. She's go the futuristic warrior-maiden look. And Destiny adores Trinny."

"You sound as if you're interested in a younger woman."

"But not _too_ young. Thirty or forty, perhaps; I can't abide women my age."

At the end of the session, Jake looked at Peggy oddly. "I sometimes feel as though one one-hour appointment a week is not enough."

"Well, perhaps I can schedule you later in the week." She opened her appointment book and scanned the week. "I have an opening on Thursday at 4.30."

"Errmm, gad, I have an audition that day. The Portland Light Opera's putting on a production of _Cabaret_ and my agent got a toehold for me. Could we make it 5?"

"Sure, whichever is easier for you."

Later, during class, Declan noticed Shelly Whitman sitting next to Lewin; her presence didn't seem to faze Lewin at all.

After class, when Lewin and Shelly headed out together, Declan took Lewin aside for a moment.

"I just thought that was interesting that you were able to tell me all about that haunting."

Lewin shrugged one shoulder modestly. "It is a gift I have."

"I don't mean to seem intrusive, but I have this side interest in studying unexplainable phenomena. I was wondering if you could come by my office later today and maybe run some tests?"

"I wish I could today, but I was having lunch with Miss Whitman and I also have practice this afternoon: I do figure skating."

"Really? Well, I guess we could do them tomorrow, if that's okay."

"I shall be here tomorrow afternoon then, around… 2.30?"

"Fine here. I'll see you then."

Lewin smiled and turned back to Shelly as he offered her his arm. She looked at him a little wide-eyed with amazement, but put her hand on his elbow.

"So," Karen said, catching up with Shelly later in the day as they walked across the campus. "_Is _he or _is_n't he?"__

"Well, if he _is_ he hides it real well. I buy him lunch today and I go to pay for it, and the cashier says, 'Your boyfriend already paid.' I guess he slipped her some cash when I was ordering."

"A smooth operator, eh? I didn't think he was the type. Watch out, girlfriend, sometimes those are the ones who come out and tell you right when you've started to really like them."

"I don't think so, he's a really honest guy. He's a figure skater."

"Cool—in both meanings of the word. Any reason why he wears black everything all the time?"

"I found that out too: he has something wrong with his eyes. He can't see colors at all, so in order to keep from mismatching stuff all the time, he just wears black."

"Weird. At least it isn't as weird as him turning out to be a Goth."

 "I think it makes him look distinctive."

"It sure does. Brrr!"

That evening, Peggy sat alone in her living room, trying to read. But her mind kept wandering. The image of Jake Jacobi's morose face haunted her imagination. She had treated widowers before, but not like Jake. She swore once or twice when her eye wandered from her book to the armchair opposite that she saw a shadowy figure very like Jake's sitting there before her, watching her with warm eyes.

Lewin walked into Declan's office at exactly 2.30 the next afternoon. Miranda sat waiting for him. He carried a gym bag that bulged with the shape of a pair of figure skates, and his dark face still shone slightly with sweat. A patch still dark from exertion showed at the neck of his black tee shirt and he carried his coat slung over one shoulder.

"Excuse me, I was supposed to meet here with Professor Declan Dunn," he said.

"Declan got detained by one of the department heads, I'm his friend Miranda Finkelstein."

"Oh I see." He extended his hand to her. "I'm one of his students, Lewin Jacobi."

"Yeah, Declan told me a lot about you. He asked me to come by and run you through a simple test. Have you ever taken the Rhine test before?"

"I do not believe I have heard of it before, until today."

"It won't take long. I'll show you a pack of cards, but you can't see the faces. What you have to do is look at the blank face and tell me what's on the other side."

"Whatever image comes into my mind?"

"The first thing that does." She sat down behind Declan's desk; only then did Lewin sit down in the chair opposite. He studied her face for a moment before he smiled sheepishly and looked down.

Miranda opened the box of cards and held one up, the blank face toward Lewin, the printed face—a black triangle—to her. Lewin flared his nostrils slightly.

"Black triangle," Lewin said, eyes lowered.

She laid the card face down on the table top, to her right, and picked up the next card on the deck.

Lewin wrinkled his nostrils, but didn't look up. "Red cross." She laid it on top of the first card and held up the next.

"Blue square."

"…White circle."

"…Black cross."

"…Green circle."

At length, she placed the last card in the deck on the stack on her right, with all the other cards. Lewin looked up at her, expectantly.

"Thanks, Lewin."

"You're very welcome, Miss Finkelstein." He did not rise until she had risen. He smiled at her and nodded slowly. She gave him one of her rare smiles. He tucked his head against his shoulder and went out.

"He scored perfectly," Miranda reported, later in Declan's office.

"So he's psychic: simple enough."

"He didn't even look at me or the cards the whole time. And, he kept wrinkling his nostrils at each card, like he was smelling it."

Declan leaned forward. "Run him through with the cards again, but this time, have him sit on the other side of a divider or something. No, wait—let's make it even harder."

"How?"

Declan eyed the rotary phone half buried under the clutter on his desk. He looked at Miranda.

"Have him take the test over the phone."

Thursday afternoon, when Lewin came home from practice, he found a message waiting for him on a slip of paper beside the phone. He dialed the number and waited.

The line picked up. "Hello?" It was Miranda's voice.

"Hello, Miss Finkelstein? This is Lewin Jacobi; did you need me for something?"

"Yes, Declan wanted me to run you through the Rhine test again."

"I'll be over as soon as I can."

"No, he wants me to do this over the phone."

Lewin closed his eyes and drew in a long breath, tasting it. "Very well…"

Miranda's pale face had turned ashen when she arrived in Declan's office.

"How'd our wonder boy do?" Declan asked, looking up over a mountain of test papers.

"He scored every one. Over the phone."

Declan whistled low. "Whew! Never saw that before."

"It's not a simple case of his being psychic."

"Why? What makes you say that?"

Miranda's face had recovered its usual pallor. "I don't know, but I can't put my finger on it."

Later that evening, Declan drove to the Jacobis' house. It looked normal for a Victorian, but its weather-beaten paint and wooden siding made it look like something out of an ancient Charles Addams cartoon. He walked up the short brick path to the door and up the steps to the porticoed front door; he looked around for the doorbell. Not seeing a button near the door, he contemplated knocking, but then he looked up and spotted a chain dangling down form the roof of the portico. He reached up and pulled it. A bell clanked somewhere inside. Footsteps approached. Bolts rattled and shot back; the door swung in.

A short, dark gentleman in his shirtsleeves looked out and peered up at him.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Yeah, my name's Declan Dunn; I'm an anthropology professor over at the University."

"Ahh, you must be the Herr Professor my Lewin has told me so much about; I'm his father, Josef Jacobi, but just call me Jake." He pulled the door open wider, stepped aside, and beckoned. "Come in."

Declan stepped into a black and white marble tile floored foyer. A crystal chandelier hung in the center of the ceiling with a couple mechanics' droplights dangling from it.

"Pardon our appearance, we're remodeling the house and we haven't found the right bulbs for the chandelier yet," Jake said. "I'm also in the middle of a late supper…er, would you care to join me? My daughter Zenzl made plenty."

"Thanks, but I wouldn't want to be beholding to you."

"Well, in that case if you'll follow me to the kitchen," Jake said, starting down a long hallway that lead to the rear of the house, to a large brick floor kitchen that had been made over into a combination kitchen dining room.

"Now does this have anything to do with Lewin's studies? He's always been a good student; the only time he misses class or assignments is if he has a competition coming up," Jake asked, pulling up a chair from the table.

"No, actually," Declan said, sitting down. "I just wanted to ask you a few questions about Lewin."

"He mentioned you had him do some kind of test to see if he's psychic; I thought it was some sort of extra curricular thing."

"You might call it that. I study cases of unexplained or miraculous phenomena."

Jake looked at him with a curious smile. "Are you Catholic?"

"Yeah, I was raised Catholic."

"Good, then I trust you. Fire away."

"Did Lewin always show some level of psychic ability?"

"Not always, if that's what you want to call it. But he always had an uncanny sense of things."

"Like what?"

"When Lewin was two, my late wife Charlotte was pregnant: he knew before the doctors ran an ultrasound that Charly was having twins, my daughter Trinity and her brother Josef, who lived long enough to be baptized.

"But that was only the beginning. In the winter after he turned thirteen, just after Lew started skating, I was driving him home from practice one day when we had to take a detour because our usual path home was blocked due to a five-car fender bender. We passed by a house we'd never passed before; suddenly, Lewin begged me to stop the car. So I pulled over; he jumped out and ran across the front garden to the front door of the house. When I caught up with him he told me something was wrong inside the house but he didn't know what it was. We broke down the door; he ran inside: nobody was home and nobody had been home for a few days, to gauge by the stack of mail on the floor under the letter slot. I caught up with him in the kitchen, where he'd discovered a seven-month old baby boy almost starved to death, still strapped into his high chair."

Jake paused for effect. "I know what you're thinking: ye old urban legend about the parents going away on vacation, confident that the babysitter is taking good care of Junior, only to come back and find the babysitter never showed up, due to a communication glitch and so on to the gory conclusion." He shook his head, dead sober. "When you're a father and you've had a child die in your arms, an image like that, of another child suffering, doesn't fade from your memory, and I've suffered amnesia since this incident. The child's parents, when they came back form their skiing jaunt in Innsbruck, were grateful that Lewin's sixth sense kicked in. Of course the parents got slapped with a child endangerment charge, but at the time I used to shoot pool with a judge, so I got him to relax the sentence a little; plus, Lewin pleaded for them. He knew they didn't mean any harm."

"So did anyone question Lewin about his 'sixth sense'?"

"I'm amazed that they didn't, but there again, Lewin's always been modest about his talent. He told me how it happened."

"How did it happen?"

"Well, first, you have to understand that Lewin is color-blind and his eyes are extremely sensitive to light, so it wasn't like he saw something."

"I wondered if that was the case, since he wears sunglasses even indoors."

"You'll laugh: he claims he smelled the baby's dirty diapers, even from the street. Believe me, that poor whelp's diaper was putrid." Jake rolled his eyes wildly to underline his point. "But how he smelled it from the street is beyond me. Oh, it's true he has a nose as sensitive as a bloodhound's, but even that doesn't quite cut it."

"True, the kid was, where, in the rear of the house?"

"Yes."

"And it was closed up, in the dead of winter in Germany."

"Not far from the Bavarian Alps."

"So it's wicked cold and smells don't travel well in the cold."

"_Ja_."

"Incredible. Would you mind if I ran a few tests with Lewin?"

Jake shrugged. "You have my permission, but you'll have to ask Lewin. He's asleep right now; he's got an early practice tomorrow. I'll tell him you came by."

"Well, in that case, I'll talk to him when I see him in class. Hey, you think he could have gotten that story off a database?"

"Lewin wouldn't lie about something as important as this." He paused. "But I suppose you're only being scientific. He might have stumbled on something and it got into his subconscious."

"Yeah, does he use computers at all?"

Jake wagged his head. "Eh, he's got a laptop he uses for assignments and emails, but he's so busy with his skating…Wait a minute. Yeah. My daughter Trinity has a trapdoor running into all our computers: if anyone might know, it might be her. I'll ask her to do some dumpster-diving and see what she comes up with."

"Gee, thanks."

Friday afternoon, as Miranda and Declan had their heads together over Declan's notes on this case—on the only bare spot on his desk—trying to spot anything suspicious, someone knocked on the office door. Moley, on his old blanket on the floor, pricked up his ears and started up, but he suddenly whined and ran behind the couch. 

Declan looked up and started to say, "Come in, the door's open" but the words caught in his throat.

A tall girl, taller than he was, stood waiting in the door. Everything she wore—her close-fitting jacket, her blouse, her flared, knee-length skirts and her knee-high boots—was made of what looked like thin patent leather or thick, black vinyl. With one hand she took off her sunglasses, with the other she held a folder.

"Are you Declan Dunn?" she asked in deep-throated voice.

"Uh, yeah, can I help you?" he asked.

She strode into the room, her long-legged gait decidedly mannish. "I'm Trinity Jacobi, Lewin's younger sister—but please call me Trinny. My dad, Jake, sent me over with something he wanted you to see."

"Oh yeah! The whatsits on Lewin's computer: did you find anything?"

"Anything like the historical society's database?" Miranda asked.

Trinny handed the folder to Declan. "I leave that for you to find out, but I'll tell you this much: he wouldn't know how to look even if he knew where to look. I'd stay but I gotta run now and buy some more nails and duct tape."

With that, she strode out of the room.

"Weird," Declan muttered. Miranda leafed through the pages; her eyes roved down the columns of folder names.

"I don't see it here, and she has the history set at 120 MB, to about a month and a half ago."

"Is there anything that looks like it could be remotely related to the historical society database?"

"No, mostly figure skating sites, Catholic sites and his Hotmail account."

_Another dead-end_, Declan thought.

"Peggy, could you do me a favor?" Declan asked as he sat in Peggy's office.

"I could; does this have to do with an investigation?"

"Yeah, a kid named Lewin Jacobi, he's the kid I told you about that the townies were ganging up on, trying to scare him with that haunting. Oh, they rigged up a bunch of spooky stuff, you know the way the townies like to treat the outsiders; he saw right through it all, but anyone could. But there's more to it."

"Such as?"

Declan looked over his shoulder to make sure no one stood listening outside the door. "He spoke to the real ghost."

"He did what?"

"He spoke to the real ghost; he just spoke to it. Okay, he addressed it like an exorcist, ordering it to speak in the name of God. We didn't hear a thing, but he must have heard something. As soon as all the commotion died down, he started telling me this story about the ghost, who it really was and how this person died. Monday Morning, Miranda's showing me this stuff she found out form the historical society; it matched Lewin's story exactly."

"He could have looked it up on a database."

"He barely uses computers, just for typing and emails, I checked it out with him. His sister's a hacker, and I mean a hacker; she's got a trapdoor running on all the computers in their house she'd know what he'd been digging around in, and she found nothing.

As Miranda finished up her lab work for the night, her cellphone rang. She pulled it out of her skirt pocket and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hallo, Miranda. Er, this is Lewin, Lewin Jacobi. I was wondering if, uh, well…I got practice tomorrow morning at the rink and I…uh…wondered if you'd like to sit in on it? I'll be there from seven to ten."

"Sure, I'll be there."

"I'll, uh, see you then. G-good night, Miranda."

"'Night, Lewin."

The line broke, but she thought she heard another click, as if Lew had extra company.

Trinny knocked on her father's door.

"If it's a message, slip it under the door," Jake called from inside. "I ain't decent."

"I just wanted to let you know your prayers are answered."

"Huh?"

"Lew's got a girl."

"Who?"

"Professor Dunn's goth friend."

"Who?!"

Trinny stepped away from the door without replying; she'd suddenly got an attack of the grins and she wanted to keep it to herself.

3: Hypernosmia

Declan arrived at the rink about 9.30 the next morning. He found Miranda seated next to Jake Jacobi in the bleachers, watching Lewin on the ice as he ran through some routine. Some kind of Goth music, a wordless chorus wailing over a backbeat, blared on the tinny sound system. He climbed down the benches to join them.

Jake watched his son through a pair of binoculars; Miranda watched with her chin cupped in both hands in rapt attention. Jake glanced up.

"Hiya, Professor," he said. "Just in time."

Declan glanced up at the figure in black zigzagging over the surface of the ice.

"Gee, he's good," he said.

Jake peered back into the binoculars. "Watch him on this inverse hydroblading." The music segued into some kind of ricocheting techno-classical piece. Lewin dove over backward, leaning back over the ice, knees bent, and his body parallel with its surface, his blades just contacting the ice as he swung to the left.

Something caught and his feet went out from under him. He fell flat on his back.

"Oh no!" Miranda cried, standing up, knuckles of one hand pressed to her lower lip.

"Well, he WAS good," Declan observed.

"It's coming," Jake said.

Lewin sat up. The music switched off. The coach walked out to him.

"You okay, Lew?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, breathing hard as he pulled himself to his feet. "Just had—the wind—knocked out of me."

Jake stood up and waved his arms over his head. "Hey, can you have a time-out? You got company," he sang out, pointing at Declan with both pointer fingers.

"Go ahead, you're getting tired," the coach said. Lewin coasted to the barrier. Declan climbed down to meet him, Jake following him.

"Hey, I talked to Peggy Fowler, a friend of mine over at St. Joseph's Hospital. She said she could get you in for a brain mapping session Tuesday evening. Could you fit it in?"

Lewin wagged his head. "I have carpentry and yard work to do." He paused and looked at his father. "I will be there."

"I'll make Trinny do your share," Jake said, with a wicked grin.

"My younger sister," Lewin said, looking at Miranda.

"Herr Professor, did I hear you mention the name of Peggy Fowler?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, she's a friend of mine."

"Oh, interesting. She's also my shrink," Jake replied. With a strange twist to his lips that tried not to be smirk, he asked "Have you…known her for a while?"

"Yeah, she's helped me on quite a few investigations."

Jake nodded slowly, his eyelids lowered. "Oh." He pressed his lips together in a strange, thin little smile.

Tuesday morning, Lewin went with Jake to Peggy's office and waited outside while his father had his session with her. Afterward, Peggy took him in.

"I spoke to your father about some of your unusual abilities. Would you like to talk about it?" she began.

"There is little to talk about if it troubles me, which it does not. Perhaps there are some folk who find me strange, but we are all strange in our own way."

"Your father told me you're color blind. Were you always?"

"No, I could see color up until I turned twelve, then everything slowly went black and white and shades of gray. I still dream in color, so I believe it has nothing to do with my brain, but my eyes."

"Does it ever bother you that you can't see colors?"

"No, except that I sometimes get colors confused. This is why I wear neutral colors all the time."

"Did you always have a strong sense of smell?"

"It got stronger as I lost my ability to see colors, but I believe it was always stronger than most people's sense."

"That's quite unusual. Did your doctor try any therapies or treatment?"

"No, there is nothing that can be done. 'Don't bother fixing what isn't broken or in danger of breaking' has been my father's motto…I understand he's hoping you'll help mend his broken heart."

"I am helping him work through his grieving process, yes."

"You must remember my father is a lonely man. Handle his soul with kid gloves, but do not let him take advantage of it."

"I've dealt with lonely male patients before."

Lewin smiled sadly. "But they will not be like my father."

That evening, Lewin entered the brain-mapping lab clad in a black sweater a size or two too big for his frame, and loose black sweatpants.

"Have you ever had a brain-mapping session before?" Peggy asked, walking along the hallway with him.

"No, Frau Dokter Fowler, this is a new experience for me," he replied. "I know much about MRIs, and I have seen them done but I have never been the subject of one."

They entered the MRI lab. Lewin paused, hesitating, then drew in a deep breath and let the two nurses help him onto the couch. Peggy went to the controller's cubicle, where Declan and Miranda waited in front of a bank of monitors. They got him comfortable and fitted him with a head set with an attached microphone, then the controller in the next room slid the couch into the machine. Lewin gasped and shivered, but only for a moment.

"Are you ready, Lewin?" the controller asked into his microphone.

"I am," Lewin's voice replied via the speaker.

The controller pressed a few keys on his keyboard. After a moment, an image of Lewin's brain, shaded in gray, scrolled onto the screens of the monitor, each screen showing a view from a different angle.

"Okay, Lewin, heeere's Miranda," the controller said, handing the microphone to Miranda. She opened the box of Rhine cards and shuffled them. She took one from the top of the deck.

"What's the first card, Lew?" she said into the microphone.

Silence met them for a few seconds. _He's gonna lose it,_ Declan feared.

They all heard a low sibilance as Lewin drew in a long breath. On the monitor screens, the occipital and frontal lobe areas associated with sight and smell lit up; the sight areas faded to yellow, but the scent areas remained glowing red. 

"Red triangle," Lewin's voice replied.  
  


Declan stared at the printouts on Peggy's desk later that evening. "I'm no expert on the brain," he said, taking off his glasses and kneading his forehead with the heels of his hands, "But if these are accurate, it can mean only one thing."

"What?" Peggy asked.

"Lewin doesn't visualize the manifestations he senses. He smells them."

"I haven't worked closely with hypernosmics before, but I know some doctors who have. They're generally far more sensitive than people with a normal sense of smell. And Lewin shows marked signs of being an HSP, a highly sensitive person."

"But how did he _smell_ those colors? Even over an intercom!"

"Lewin told me his sense of smell got stronger as he lost his ability to see colors when he was twelve."

"But the centers related to color aren't close to the sight centers, right?"

"Everybody's brain is wired a little differently. Perhaps for whatever reason, Lewin's sight centers have fibers connecting them to his smell centers. Or there could be a 'cross' in the neurons of his brain. You know how sometimes a stimulus goes to a different center besides the brain, like the shifting fluid in the semi-circular canals can send a signal to your abdomen, causing nausea."

"Oh yeah, my sister used to drive me nuts every summer when dad took us to the carnival; one ride on the merry-go-round and she'd start whining about her stomach being upset."

"Lewin could have something like that, only more dramatic."

"Well, how does it explain that weird bluish light that flashes on his eyes surface when he senses something supernatural?

"That could simply be an autosuggestion."

"And I suppose there's no empiric way to test him for that. I dunno, Peg, this might be one for the unexplained file."

When she got home Wednesday night, Peggy found the light blinking on her answering machine; she had three messages waiting. First came a wrong number—which almost amounted to an obscene call, second a telemarketer, but the third made her pause.

"This is Jake Jacobi…I know I shouldn't call your home number, but I just needed to talk to you as soon as you can. But…don't feel you have to return this call immediately; I'll get through it somehow."

At one and the same time, she wanted to call right away, but not just because of the doctor-patient status. But at the same time she wanted to delete the message and hope he could get through it on his own.

She micro waved a chicken pie for herself and made herself eat some of it before she let herself reach for the phone. She dialed and waited.

It picked up. "Hello, Jacobi residence," an unfamiliar young man's voice said.

"Yes, this is Dr. Fowler, is Jake still there by any chance?"

"Yeah, hold on while I switch lines. We got three lines here and Trinny might have one of them tied up, she hasn't got her DSL modem hooked up. Oh, uh, I'm her husband Tom."

"Yes, your father-in-law told me a little about you."

"Don't believe half of it. Okay, I just paged him, so you should switch over in a second or two…" The line clucked.

"Hello?" Jake said. Music played in the background.

"Hello, Jake, this is Peggy—I mean, Dr. Fowler. I just got your message. Are you all right?"

"Yes…and no. I'm still breathing and I'm alone in my room."

"What seems to be the problem?"

A low sigh rustled on the other end. "The usual loneliness, only it's worse…I went out for dinner just to get out, and I caught myself hoping someone—of the fairer sex, that is—would try picking me up."

"So what did you do then?"

"I called for my bill and went home, no sense leading myself or anyone else into temptation."

"You did the right thing: you stuck to your own principles that you made for yourself. It takes a lot of strength to do that."

Another deep sigh rustled on the line. "I don't know how many times I can keep being strong, I'm just exhausted. I just want…" She heard him groan away from the mouthpiece.

"Jake, where are you?"

"In my room alone, with the door closed, lying on the bed in my dressing gown."

An image flashed across her mind's eye, as clear as if she could see it before her: Jake reclining against a pile of throw pillows, the phone beside him on the bedcovers. She pushed it away; his voice had continued…

"…And precious little else, I might add for clarity's sake. Thank God we don't have standard issue videophones over here—yet."

"I suppose I should agree with you," she said.

"Not very ladylike otherwise," he added in a shrill, playfully mocking falsetto. In his normal voice he added, "I just want to make myself perfectly clear." His voice cracked on the last word.

He said nothing for several moments. She wondered if he had started crying in the meantime. "Jake, can you hear me?"

"Yes," he replied, half-choked.

She caught herself feeling sorry for him. "I know exactly what you're going through. I lost my husband several years ago."

"How?" he asked, somewhat less raspy-voiced.

"It was a car accident; he was struck by a drunk driver. Our church prayed for him. He started to recover; he regained consciousness; and then he died."

"That's how it happened with Charly, after a fashion. The cancer went into remission; she was able to come home to us. And then it came back; she had radiation treatment, but that failed to halt the cancer. We took her to a specialist in the States, but she was too weak. So, they sent her home to die. We made her last weeks as comfortable as we could. I spent just about every moment with her, all we had left was time together. And then she died in Trinny's arms…funny thing was they never go along. But they reconciled just before the end."

After a pause he added, "And you haven't found anybody since?"

"I've had a few friends, but it never got to be more than that. My work keeps me very busy."

"I can understand that happening to a little ugly like myself, but all work and no play…" He cleared his throat, "Hraggh—hemm! Not even the Herr Professor?"

"Declan? He's just a good friend."

"I see." He fell silent again. "And I think I have problems."

"What?"

"At least I lost my beloved for reasons far beyond human control. If some—what, a kid, a kid by emotional level? —had had a few less than he had, you'd still have your husband."

"Even still, we can't control what other people do."

"Very true.

"May I say one thing, Peggy?" Jake said at length. "It's very personal."

"You can tell me anything you need to say."

He paused for a whole thirty seconds. She almost wondered if he had put the phone aside, too embarrassed to speak. Then she heard him breathing.

"Peggy…I love you." He pronounced these words in such a choked voice that she knew he meant it.

It had been so long since any man had told her those words, Peggy couldn't think straight. She tried to refocus her mind and step back from the situation, but she couldn't. Her heart throbbed like she had not felt throb since…when? Since her last anniversary? Since…the morning of the accident? 

"I know what you're thinking, I'm violating doctor-client privilege. But sometimes the best relationships are the ones that defy the odds."

"Jake, I don't know what to say. I feel compassion for you, and I identify with your sufferings because I've known them, not the same way of course. But I…like you."

Jake laughed a short, gently mocking laugh. "I know you're not being honest; I've trained too carefully to be fooled. Come, I've been perfectly honest with you, now it is your turn to be honest with me."

Her better judgment told her not to say it, but something else won out. "I…I love you."

"That's all I wanted to know," he said.

She barely heard the line cut out and the dial tone whirring. She recollected herself enough to hang it up, but she still could not refocus her whirling emotions. She tried to remind herself of all the cases she had heard about psychiatrists who allowed themselves to become personally involved with their clients, all the heartbreaks and stormy divorces and—even—murders. But somehow she refused to listen to these stories. She knew everyone would say she'd let this charmer wrap her around his little finger; she knew they'd say he did this only to get her between the sheets. And she knew just from his admissions and just from her own observations that his blood ran high to say the least. It didn't matter; what did they know? So much time had passed since the last time she had let herself feel these feelings that she almost jolted at the warm tingling that passed over her body.

But she refocused enough to finish her supper and go through her usual nightly routine.

As she made up the bed for the night, she caught herself putting an extra pillow beside her own. She laughed at her own absent-mindedness and put it back.

The door to Jake's room opened and Trinny stuck her head around the leaf.

"I got those printouts you wanted," she started to say. Then she stared at him. The phone stood near his feet as he reclined on the bed, his arms crossed under his head; his face bore a strange look, at once faraway and intent, his lips folded into a complex smile, part blissful, part mischievous.

She kneed the door open wide and strode into the room, to the foot of the bed. "Hey, what's with you?" she demanded. "You got a_nother_ dangerous liaison going?"

"What makes you say that?"

"You got that look on your face you used to have after those times you'd be talking to Ma over the phone and you wouldn't let any of us kids come within earshot. Last time you did that was with the banker-woman with the ditch-digger ex-husband and you almost ended up with another exit wound to match the old one on your other thigh. You're asking for it."

"Not this time: I've no competition unless you count that absent-minded professor or the fine widow's memories," he said.

"Wait a minute: this isn't your shrink, is it?"

"Checkmate."

Trinny shook her head. "All right: you do it to me, I'll do it to you."

He turned to look at her. "Do what?"

"Let you take the consequences. But remember this: when you're recovering from surgery to remove a Neanderthal skull from your own skull, don't say I didn't warn you."

With that, she went out, banging the door shut behind her.

4: The Rivals

The following Tuesday, Peggy had just passed the nurses' station when she noticed three off-duty nurses staring down the hallway and craning their necks up to see over each other. She continued on her way to her office, but she paused when Nurse Mitchell met her.

"May I ask what's going on in the nurses' station?" Peggy asked.

Nurse Mitchell looked at her watch. "It's Tuesday, right?"

"Yes."

"It's almost 5.30, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, God's short, dark, but not very handsome gift to women should be in for his appointment with you any minute now." Nurse Mitchell peered over Peggy's shoulder; she frowned, trying to hide the amusement that sparked in her eyes. "Here comes the American gigolo himself, and I don't mean Richard Gere: I mean Rob Schneider's stand-in." Peggy knew she must have betrayed something, by a look or a sigh she barely felt escape. "What, you disagree?" the older woman asked. "Are you coming on to him?"

"No," Peggy said, without looking at Nurse Mitchell. She went into her office, but she didn't close the door. She overheard someone make an off-color remark. A raucous laugh that could only belong to Jake answered it.

"Sorry, Mesdames, this boy _not_ for hire."

 A few seconds later, a warm, masculine aroma wafted into the open doorway. Peggy, her nostrils tingling with delight, looked up from her desk, trying to find the source. Jake stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

"Jake, come right in," she said, trying not to sound too eager. He smiled in reply and stepped away from the doorframe and approached her desk. He didn't sit down until she had seated herself in one of the armchairs; he leaned forward in his chair, his knees spread apart. He wore his usual conservative jacket, but he had it unbuttoned, which displayed his lower extremities. Peggy wanted to avert her gaze out of deference, but she found her eyes riveted to his groin: he'd put on a pair of trousers a size too small, with obvious intention.

"So how are you feeling about the investigation?" she asked him later in the session.

He wagged his head. "I should be used to it: this isn't the first time Lewin was under scrutiny. The archdiocese of Munich conducted an investigation relating to a demonic possession he detected when he was fifteen. But this doesn't bother me so much, it's just a private investigation."

"Declan can be a little pushy, but he means well." 

Jake closed his eyes down to slits. "Yes, I've noticed," he replied. "He just asked our permission for him to go public with his findings. I only requested that he use a pseudonym for us. I don't want any newsmongers or thrill-seekers coming after us; not, more importantly, does Lewin."

"I'm sure Declan will take care to respect your wishes."

His face folded back into its strange, cunning smirk. "Yes, I hope he does." 

Wednesday afternoon, a florist deliveryman came through St. Joseph's and stopped by Peggy's office with something loosely wrapped in flowered paper.

"Are you Dr. Peggy Fowler?" he asked.

"Yes, I am," she replied. She eyed the flowers, wondering who could have sent them, bur her heart throbbing answered her question. She singed the slip he offered her and took the bundle.

She unwrapped them to find a dozen red roses and a card from Jake.

_Accept these roses as a token of my affection. I'll call you tonight. J._

She found took down a bud vase that held a bunch of dried flowers on her shelf and took out the dried flowers. She filled it with water, put one of the roses in it and put it on her desk.

The phone rang just as Peggy got in the door. She all but ran to pick it up.

"Hello?" she answered, trying not to sound too breathless.

"Hellooo," crooned a familiar dark voice. "With a voice like that, they ought to find a way to press it into pills and market it as the new wonder anti-depressant." She laughed. "If you can make jokes, you're not so far gone, no?"

"No. Thanks for the roses, it was quite a surprise."

"You're welcome. I bet it's been a long time since someone sent you flowers."

"Yes, it was very thoughtful of you. So, how have you been?"

"On cloud nine: I just got confirmation that I got the part in _Cabaret_."

"That's wonderful. When does it open?"

"In three weeks, in time for Thanksgiving. I'll be in rehearsal every day until then; in which case, is it possible for me to have my appointments at night?"

"Yes, certainly."

"It won't be too much trouble, will it?"

"No, not at all."

"Good, good, 's all I wanted to say."

Thursday morning, Lewin ran up the walk to the Anthropology Department building the way he always did, exercising his lungs, drinking in and filtering the smells of the autumn morning, eyes slitted shut, letting his nose guide him. 

He smelled two masculine clouds of stale sweat and overworked sport deodorant approaching. He opened his eyes.

Sims and Hickey had fallen in step beside him, their long legs taking two of his steps in one stride.

"You and the Prof think you're funny trying to hide who you are," Hickey snarled.

"I am a very private man, and I don't have much time for the attentions of prying eyes," Lewin said.

"If you're such a man, you little ice fairy, how come you didn't let the Prof put yer real name in the paper, huh?" Hickey grabbed Lewin by the tie.

"Will you please take your stinking hands off me?" Lewin demanded.

"Soitenly," Sims said, twisting Lewin's arms behind his back.

Sims and Hickey came into class later than usual. Declan noticed someone had ripped their shirts and they both had bruises and scratches around their chins and cheeks. Lewin hadn't arrived yet either, nor had Shelly Whitman, and she'd come into class with Lew every single class day since just after the incident at Hell Hollow...

Shelly Whitman ran in crying. "Somebody help! Someone beat up Lewin Jacobi!"

Declan jumped up from behind his desk, almost tripped over Mole, and followed Shelly out. Several students followed them.

They found Lewin under the bushes outside, near the front steps, bruised badly and bleeding profusely from a cut on his scalp. A crowd had gathered around the spot.

"Somebody call 911!" Declan shouted.

"Well, the dean's office suspended Sims and Hickey," Declan told Peggy, later that afternoon, as they stood outside Lewin's room in the hospital. "Have you contacted his family?"

"Yes, his father said he'd be over right away."

"I'm here now," said a deep voice behind them.

They both turned. Jake stood behind them, clad in a black trench coat buttoned over his bare chest.

"I was in for a costume fitting when I got the call," he said. "I just grabbed my coat, slung it on and ran." He looked in through the observation window. "How is he? How did it happen?"

"He got beat up by a couple kids from his class," Declan said. "But we were able to figure out who did it: they're in custody right now."

Jake smiled sourly. "Any chance they can be extradited to Germany? Lew hasn't applied for citizenship."

"Probably not," Peggy said.

Jake looked through the glass. "How is he?"

"He's stabilized now, but he had a concussion and he hasn't come out of the anesthesia from the operation," Peggy replied.

"Operation?"

"He had a crack on his skull, but it wasn't life-threatening. He'll need to rest for a few weeks, but he won't suffer any permanent damage."

Jake gripped the windowsill so hard the tendons bulged on his thin fingers. A tear rolled down his cheek; he bent his head as if to hide it.

"When you've lost a child, you never want to see your surviving children suffer," he said. Peggy put her arm around Jake's shoulder.

"He'll be all right." She glanced up.

Lewin had stirred on his bed. He turned his head to the window and lifted one hand, with a pulse sensor still attached to his index finger. Jake looked at Peggy.

"Can I go in?" he asked.

"Yes."

 He slid slowly from under her arm and stepped into the room. Peggy turned to Declan, who stood with his head hung.

"I feel like I brought it on him, like I'd been singling him out with the investigation," he admitted.

"No, you didn't bring it on him. People do that to people who are different all the time. It happened to me when I was in high school. I wanted to go into medicine, to be a doctor, but the other girls thought I was being pushy.

"You couldn't have known what would happen to Lew."

Declan looked in through the window. Jake sat on the edge of the bed, holding Lew's hands in both of his. "That kid was working so hard; he's a good kid and a good athlete, and those punks had to wreck it for him. He was going to some competition this weekend, in Seattle." 

Sharp footsteps clacked on the tiles of the hallway floor. Trinny came striding around a corner, her eyes blazing and her nostrils flared.

"I just got a voice mail about Lew; what's happened?" she demanded, her voice quavering. She had set her face as a mask of stoicism, but her eyes threatened to overflow.

Peggy told her the whole story. "The doctors are just keeping him overnight for observation; if he shows no signs of complications, they'll send him home tomorrow or the next day. Trinny's lower lip trembled; she sank the tips of her teeth into it and rushed into the room.

She joined Jake by the bedside. He put a hand on her arm and spoke to her in a low voice, soothingly.

"Those punks 'll wish they never crossed us Jacobis!" she hissed.

"Well, just don't do anything the Feds could prosecute you for," Lewin said, smiling

Peggy put her arm around Declan and unconsciously pressed herself to him.

At that moment, Jake glanced up at them. An odd look passed over his face, but he quickly turned back to Lewin. Trinny, however, kept her eye on the window.

Jake still wore his trench coat when he came for his session that evening; he kept endeavoring to keep the skirts of it closed over his thighs. But Peggy quickly—though inadvertently—discovered he had only his shorts on under it.

"Good practice for the show," he said grinning. "They want me to be stripped to the waist for the finale."

"I've been meaning to ask what part you have," she said.

"No less than the Emcee himself…_if_ he is a himself." His façade of humor collapsed; he sighed and looked away.

"You must be shaken by what happened this morning."

"Yeah." He fell morosely silent. "Why does stuff like this have to happen to good kids? Lew's gonna miss that competition this weekend."

"They probably did it because they were jealous of Lewin. He's smart, he's gifted…"

"He keeps his nose clean in and out of class. He has a father who makes sure he keeps his grades up. Oh, I never did 'Heavy, heavy hangs over your head' the way may father did to me. I never had to with Lew."

"You love him, and it's good that he knows it. You're an excellent father, and it shows in the kind of kids you have, the way they've turned out."

"Yeah, I quickly discovered that not all my kids were alike. I never had to do much to discipline Lew; just give him a hard stare when he was a little kid and he'd stop doing whatever it was he shouldn't be doing. But Trinny and Agnes were other cases entirely. I like to think Trinny was that way because Charly couldn't get over the fact that she had a daughter who'd inherited my high testosterone."

"She is rather bullish, but she lets you know when something has made her angry."

"Yeah, but I wouldn't have her any other way." He groaned and covered his eyes with both hands; he leaned forward and twisted to one side, weeping. Peggy got up and knelt beside him; she put her arms around him and held him, letting him cry on her shoulder.

"Go ahead, it's okay. He'll heal. Let it go, let it go."

"They pick on Lew for being the way he is. They say he's gay, and he's not. They call him a wimp, and he's strong for his size."

"What do they know?" she said.

She glanced up toward the window. Silhouetted against the vertical blinds stood Trinny, her face turned to them. She turned and strode away. Jake had lifted his face to look at Peggy, his face just inches from hers. She never knew what came over her, but she caught herself kissing him.

Jake broke free. "Perhaps I'd better be going before this starts going places," he said in a husky whisper. He slid out of her arms.

At the door to Lewin's room Trinny almost collided with Miranda.

"Hey, beat it!" Trinny started. Then she saw Miranda. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was you, Miranda."

"I just came to check on Lewin."

"So did I. May I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

Trinny glanced back up the hallway. "What's with Dr. Fowler and Professor Dunn? Are they just friends?"

"Basically. But I'd say that Peggy has some interest in Declan. She just hides it well."

Trinny lowered here eyelids. "I thought so."

A few minutes later, Shelly Whitman arrived at the door or Lewin's room carrying a huge basket of red roses. She peered around the door and spotted two black clad women by his bedside chatting with him. The taller sat on the mattress up near Lew's head, the shorter, whom Shelly recognized as Professor Dunn's girlfriend Miranda what's-her-name, occupied a chair very close to him. She almost threw the roses in at the door and stomped away, but she got a better idea.

She walked away and gave the flowers to the nurses to give to a lonely old lady in another room.

Friday morning Lewin, the left side of his head swathed in bandages and wearing a neck brace, went home to his family, still a little shaky, but back to his usual quiet self.

About the same time, Peggy called her old friend and mentor Renee.

"I've got a problem," Peggy said, hesitating about calling it that.

"Oh, we all have problems," Renee replied. "That's what we're in business for."

"This is something else. I'm falling in love with a patient."

"You won't be the first and you won't be the last. I've been through it myself. Not a good idea most of the time."

"That's just it, I don't know if it's a good idea or not."

"They tell you to listen to your heart and all that, but you have to listen to your head too."

"It's been so long since I was in a relationship with any one."

"Not since your husband's death?"

"No."

"What about that dark young man with the mysterious phenomena hobby? What about him?"

"Oh, Declan and I are just friends. I've helped him out with a few things along the way."

"Yes, so I've heard. Tell me about this patient."

"He's older than I, he's in his late fifties, he's a widower with several children ranging from twenty to six years old. His wife died of uterine cancer six years ago. He's very charming and friendly; he's an actor by profession."

"I'd say he's trying to get you between the sheets. He probably had to start abstaining several months or years before his wife's death, and he's probably just dying for someone to do him one."

"I'd say there definitely is a sexual element to his attention to me; he's admitted to be a very sexual man: he's somewhat half-humorously referred to the fact that his testosterone level is high for a man his size. But I think there more to it. Can't we say there's a sexual dimension to every relationship, if not in a genital sense?"

"Exactly. And that's where the trouble starts. Has he exhibited any inappropriate behavior? Tried any moves on you?"

"No, he's always very polite and gentlemanly around me; he's that way with every woman."

"I'd be careful. He sounds like a player."

She wanted to say, _You don't know him the way I know him,_ but she knew she would only cause herself more trouble. They closed the conversation with Peggy admitting she'd try to keep her patient at arm's length form then on.

But her resolve changed a few minutes later when the phone rang. She picked it up. "Hello?"

"Hellooo, darling," a familiar sultry male voice crooned. "I just wanted to know if you had any plans tonight. I was thinking of celebrating Lewin's return home and my getting the part."

"No, I've got nothing planned for tonight."

"Good. I found this cozy little Italian restaurant on the riverfront, Mastroianni's. Have you been there?"

"No, but I've been meaning to; a nurse here told me it's very good."

"It is: I've been there once, but you can only enjoy so much at a _table por une_. So, I meet you there around…say six-thirty, seven o'clock?"

"Seven would be fine."

"Good…I'll be counting down the minutes till I see you, Peggy…I love you."

She threw Renee's good advice to the winds. "I love you too." 

The line broke; she heard another click on the line, which she took for a cellphone glitch.

Trinny closed the trap door onto her father's cellphone. She cursed under her breath and pushed her chair back from her computer desk. _Get your hands off another man's woman, you man-'ho! _she thought. She had a lot of stuff to do today and this only added to it. Rescuing women made her head sing…

5: What is She to You?

Around five-thirty, Declan returned to his office after going to the offices of the local news to release his latest case. He stepped into the room; at once Mole started to whine and pull away as far as his leash would let him.

Trinny Jacobi sat waiting for him in the middle of his desktop.

"I've got news for you," she said.

"What? Is Lewin all right?" Images flashed through his mind of Lewin losing his abilities. Maybe that bump on the head jarred something loose in his skull and strangled his sense of smell…

"He was fine when I left the house a few minutes ago. He'd been helping Zenzl and Agnes unpack the last boxes. No, it's other news."

"What about?"

She extended her legs and stepped off the desk. She walked up to him and stood looking him in the eye. "It pertains to you."

"What do you mean?"

"Your good friend Peggy Fowler has a date with my father tonight."

"With your father? How do you know?"

"I hacked his cellphone and eavesdropped on the conversation."

"So?"

"Do you know anything about my father and his past?"

"No."

"If I were you and I cared about that woman and what happens to her, I'd do everything in my power to get between them."

"Why? If that's what Peggy really wants—"

"Yeah, but is that what she NEEDS? Doesn't it make you mad to think of Peggy and my father together? For godssake, he's almost twice her age! Hello! Reality check time! I discussed this with Miranda, and she don't like it any more than I do, but for different reasons."

"What do you know about Peggy and me? Did she--?"

"Yes, she told me all about your history. Or lack thereof, I might add."

"Listen, whatever Peggy does with her time is none of my business…"

"You listen: my father worked as a Manhattan man 'ho servicing wealthy women for five-hundred an hour when he was twenty, just to keep from starving to death. He somehow stayed free of disease except for one little sneaky virus that attacks female cells only. It caused my mother to develop uterine and vaginal cancer that eventually killed her. Do you want Peggy to get it?"

"Well, there are ways to prevent that—"

"What, barrier methods? We're Catholic, us Jacobis: nothing goes in or comes out that God and nature didn't already put there or remove. For that matter, I once heard Jack say he never liked that stuff; said it interfered with his…enjoyment."

"If you're so worried about it, you do something about it."

"The problem isn't so much me or Jack or Peggy; I'm no part of that triangle. The problem is you."

Declan took her arm and started propelling her toward the door. "Will you do me a favor, Ms. Jacobi and get out before I have to call security?"

Her free hand whipped out and clipped him on the chin. Stunned, he stumbled back. He tried to swing at her, but she caught his punch in both hands and yanked his arm back with a half-twist. He stared into her eyes for a moment. Then she lifted him and kneed him in the stomach with such force that she hurled him halfway across the room.

He barked up against a file cabinet. She came at him again; he lifted his arms to fend her off, but she picked him up and tossed him onto the couch. Behind it, Mole yelped with fright.

"Now that I have your _un_divided attention, Professor Dunn," she said in a low, quiet voice devoid of expression. "I want you to know: You have a good friend in Peggy; my father sees her as a potential lover and wife. So why don't you be a man for a change and _do _something about it…before you've lost her to my father."

With that, she turned on her heel and walked out. He stared after her for a few minutes, still too stunned to move.

Then he realized, _She's right, damn it._ He pulled himself out of the couch.

Declan rapped on the Jacobis' door with the hand that didn't ache; Lewin, a gauze pad still taped to a shaven spot on his scalp, answered it and looked out.

"Oh, hello, Professor Dunn," he said. "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"Yeah, I need to talk to your dad; is he still in?"

"He's upstairs in his room, dressing. Shall I take you up there?"

"Yeah, thanks." Lewin stepped aside and pulled the door open, letting Declan enter. He closed the door behind them and led the way up the wide staircase to the second floor.

He led him down a hallway leading toward the rear of the house. They passed by an open doorway; Declan glanced around the open door and quickly looked away: Trinny stood inside, unpacking a box and humming to herself. She did not look up; Declan breathed a sigh of relief.

"Is this about what I think it is?" Lewin asked.

"Well, if you know that your father has a date with Dr. Fowler and you know that your sister just twisted my arm and almost knocked my lights out, yeah, it has to do with that."

"I'm sorry to hear that; this must be important if she did all that to you."

"Why, she frequently beats up people she's delivering bad news to?"

"Not unless they have done something to warrant that. She uses her fists with care."

At the last door at the end of the hallway, Lewin stopped and pressed his ear to the door. He rapped on it loudly. Declan thought he heard Jake reply. Lewin said, without opening the door, "It's Declan Dunn come to see you about something." A reply muffled behind the door.

Lewin pushed the door open and stepped aside. Declan stepped inside.

Jake stood before the mirror over his bureau, clad in a burgundy silk shirt with a Byron collar over a pair of tastefully close-fitting black leather pants. He patted the last strands of his carefully pomaded hair into place and blotted his hands on a towel that lay on top of the dresser.

"I know, I know, I'm more vain than some women and there's utterly nothing to be vain about," Jake confessed without turning around.

"Y' going some place?"

"Yes. I'm going out on a date. With, I must add, a very attractive young widow."

"Yeah, I heard; Trinity told me."

"I guess you must have crossed her."

"How can you tell that?"

"I've been looking at your reflection in the mirror, not mine, all the time I've been talking to you. That mark on your wrist looks nasty."

"I'll admit that she did, but that's not the point."

Jake had turned around and gone to the bed, on which lay spread a black leather tuxedo jacket. He started to slip it on, but he paused and half turned to Declan. "Oh?" he asked, drawing out the syllable.

"Yeah. I know what you're doing and where you're going: you're going out with Peggy, right?"

"Pre-_cise_-ly. But why am I going out with her?" Jake asked, pulling on the jacket. "I'm violating doctor-client privileges." He buttoned up the jacket. He cocked his head as he straightened the sleeves, and looked up at Declan. "I'm doing this because I'm helping her."

"Helping her?!"

"Yes. Anyone with eyes to see can tell this woman needs a good man to bring her out of this darkness she's sunk into. She's still hurting after losing her husband. I know this sort of pain very graphically. I lost my wife six years ago. I had to go through amnesia to get myself back, and I'm still not out of the woods. But now I'm ready to get out again and, in so doing, help another person got out of the same darkness."

A flash of color caught in the corner of Declan's eye. He looked at the foot of the bed. A wine-colored brocade dressing gown lay across the turned down covers. Two pillows stood at the head of the bed. Declan looked back at Jake, who had turned back to the mirror as he put a dark red carnation in his buttonhole.

"It's called seduction, Herr Professor; I'm sure you're very familiar with the courtship and mating rituals of the human species. For my Germanic ancestors it meant proving a man could hold his own in the wilderness against rival tribes and so impress his prospective bride; for my Romany ancestors, it meant stealing a horse to draw the future couple's wagon," Jake replied. "It's very simple for the woman: she merely has to be unattached, available, attractive, and fertile. But the man has the most work to do. He has to win her heart—and that requires, these days, not just skill but artistry."

"And do you think I'm any less a man than you are?"

"No, not as far as abstract know-how is concerned; you probably know more than I know. But as for putting it into practice, I might be more adept." He turned on his heel and faced Declan. "But little of this has to do simply with Peggy and me."

"What the hell do you mean?"

"I mean it has to do with you as well."

Declan squinted and shook his head.

"In the course of my misspent life, I have learned all the signals a woman shows when she's interested in a particular man. Now, Peggy may be interested in yours truly, but I can see that her interest in you runs much deeper. The question is, can you see it?"

"Peggy's my best friend, I mean, well, I could make it more than friends, but I never gave it much thought."

"And that is the crux of the matter. Do you really want to see her going out with another man? A man nearly twice her age? A man who stands a whole head shorter than her, and a whole head and shoulders shorter than you? A man who used to work as, shall we call it, an escort? Who knows what pleasant little organisms I have hiding dormant in my flesh. All this considered: do you really want to see her consorting with yours truly?"

"No!"

"Well then." Jake stepped up to Declan, so close he felt the smaller man's breath fan his face. "Why…don't…you…DO something about it…before _I_ do, mmnnhnn?"

Declan contemplated punching that thin, leering face just inches—at an angle—from his face. But he didn't want that leather-clad silicon Valkyrie to intervene, and he knew Jake would probably get the advantage since his small stature made him harder to tip over.

"If you're going to put it that way, I will," Declan said.

He turned and walked out, finding his way out.

The phone rang in Peggy's room as she finished dressing. She almost ignored it, but it might be a patient…she walked over to the bedside table and picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"'This line is tapped, so I must be brief'," Jake's voice replied, in a poor imitation of Laurence Fishburne. "The date's off, I'm afraid, unless you'd rather keep it."

"Oh no, whatever's comfortable for you; is anything wrong?"

"I just had an altercation with Herr Professor Declan Dunn; a combination of Trinny's fists and my verbal whacking has brought him to his senses."

"What do you mean?"

"If you'd rather keep the date, we can discuss it over dinner."

"Well, in that case, I'll meet you there."

Miranda's cellphone rang just as she left the Physics Department and started home later that evening. She answered it.

"Hello, Miranda," Lewin replied.

"How are you feeling?"

"Perhaps a little more like myself; are you busy tonight?"

"No, not really. Did you have anything in mind?"

"Yes, I wondered if you'd like to come up here to our house for a while. We're having a party, just us young folks: we're celebrating my coming home from the hospital, Trinny's finding the right bulbs for the chandeliers, and Zenzl's unpacking the last boxes, which, I must add, contained the DVD player. So we rented _Swordfish_ and I was going to order some pizza…but I thought you might like to join us."

"Sure. When would you like me to come over?"

"Any time that is good for you; but first…what would you like on that pizza?"

"Oh, anything except anchovies."

"Ugh! I don't like them either…we have much in common," he added humorously.  
  


Peggy found Jake very quickly in Mastroianni's: he was the smallest man sitting at a table by himself. He rose to greet her and kissed both her hands.

"My, you're looking very dashing tonight," she said, looking him over. He got her seated before sitting down himself, facing her across the table.

"Why, thank you. I had been half of a mind to dismantle the work and just throw anything on, but I'd put the effort into it."

"That's a very distinctive dinner jacket you have on; is it a new style in Europe or is it an original?"

"Actually it's an original, but it's beginning to catch on over there. I haven't worn it since before Charly died—didn't want anyone staring at me until I felt good and ready for it."

"It suits you perfectly, it shows off your best physical qualities."

"Not to sound vain, but those are?"

"Your excellent posture, your slimness; it makes you look taller than you actually are."

He echoed the last six words. "Thanks, I mean, well, mirrors tell you only so much. Hearing another person put it into words makes it seem more real."

They ordered the wine, which Jake did gladly, impressing Marcello the waiter by ordering in impeccable Italian.

"So what would you have done if you hadn't come here?" Peggy asked.

"Oh, I'd probably have curled up with a book, made popcorn and watched a movie, surfed the 'Net. Or I'd have gone to bed early and awakened moaning and alone at three a.m., unable to get back to sleep."

"Do you do that a lot?"

He made a wry face. "Enough that Trinny and her husband Tom want to soundproof my room, since their room abuts mine. Mono—that's his stage name—suggested blowing rock wool down inside the walls."

"So why, exactly didn't you want to come?"

"I had a little talk with Declan before I left…about him and you."

"About Declan and I?"

"Yes, I guess…if I really love you Peggy, I'll have to let you go."

"Jake, do you love me or do you just think you love me?"

He dropped his gaze to his lap and sighed, his lower lip trembled until he drew it between his teeth. He looked at her.

"It began as mere interest, then it hotted itself up to hormonal infatuation. But I think there's something more to it than mere adolescent yearnings."

He fell silent. "Go on," she said, encouraging.

He looked away and looked at her again. "It may not happen for a while, but I think you and Declan are headed for something I could never give you. I'm too old and used up." He reached across the table and clasped her wrist.

"Josef—may I call you that?"

"Yes…yes, please, nobody's called me that since Charly died."

"Josef, I just want you to know that I love Declan as a friend. But I also love you too." She slid her hand back in his grasp, until her palm rested on his.

"That is why I wanted to call this off."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to destroy what could be."

"I'm not obligating you, but I'm not pushing you away."

He opened his hand and released hers. "I know. I know."

They passed the rest of the meal chatting about everything and nothing in particular: roles he had played, funny things that happened to her in college, and movies they had both seen.

Afterward they went out together into the night to walk along the riverbank, side by side. At length they paused and stood at the railing along the cliff edge, gazing down at the water, watching the star light sparkling on the ripples and listening to the water murmuring over rocks and branches.

"Jake, if you think you should move on, you're free to do so. You should, for your sake," she said turning to look at him.

He turned his face to her. "What if I don't want to, what then?" he asked.

"You have to make that decision. You're welcome to stay with me if that's right with you."

"That's just it: selfish fool that I am, I just want to stay in this place, beside you. I saw the same pain in you that I feel crushing my own being. I thought—I hoped, really, that since we both bear the same burden we could help carry each other's cross. Together. But if we did, you might find yourself paying a price."

"What do you mean?"

He stared down at the water for a long time. He wiped one leather-gloved hand over his face and leaned his chin into his palm, his elbow resting on the top rail.

"I never told you how Charly developed cancer." He paused again and breathed out, his breath forming white tendrils around his dark face. "I told you I worked as 'shall-we-call-it' an escort when I was a young man. I don't know what that means here in Portland, but in Manhattan it means sexual servicing."

"Let's say some things don't change from one coast to the other."

"Uh oh," he groaned and laughed. Sobering once again he continued. "She caught a virus from me, not one of the typical venereal diseases, but one that hasn't shown up except in young men of the oldest profession. They don't get ill from it, but their wives or…female domestic partners can. A doctor over in Germany isolated it; seems that it attacks only cells with two X chromosomes, meaning only women. I've undergone count 'm two total blood transfusions to try cleansing my system. I passed the last test to determine if I'm still a carrier, but who's to know if one microbe isn't lying dormant somewhere in my body." He sighed deeply and looked straight at her. "If I knew for sure I'm clean, I wouldn't hesitate to ask you to marry me."

"I'm glad you were so honest with me and that you shared this me."

"Why, so breaking up with me will be easier?" he asked in a harsh voice she hadn't heard him use before.

"No, because if you really love someone, you can look them in the eye and let yourself be completely truthful with them."

He turned to face her. "In that case…I love you."

"I love you." 

Jake looked up at her. He leaned on hand on the rail, stretched himself up and putting his free hand on the back of her head, tilted her face down to his. For a moment, she felt his warm breath caress her face, smelling faintly of wine. She breathed in the heady, animal aroma of him. She parted her lips slightly as he laid his mouth over hers.

He lingered a moment, then broke away. He released her.

"Shall I escort you to your car, Dr. Fowler?" he asked.

"Yes…thanks."

Declan watched from the lot up above. Seeing that skinny runt, that well-dressed chimpanzee kissing Peggy made his blood boil. But he saw them separate. He noticed the significant distance between Jake and Peggy as they walked up the slope, back to the lot. At the nose of her car, they stopped and exchanged goodbyes. Jake shook her hand, but nothing more. After she had unlocked her car and climbed in, he stepped back and tipped his hat to her. As she started the car and pulled away, he walked away and vanished into the shadows.

Somebody cracked a cigarette lighter nearby. Declan looked around.

About ten feet away, Jake stood, lighting a cigarette; the flame from the light illumined his thin face for a moment before it went out. The tip of his cigarette glowed like a dusky gold pearl for a second.

"Professor Dunn, I presume?" Jake said, sauntering out of the shadows up to the side of Declan's truck.

"Yeah, I caught up with you."

Jake held out the pack of cigarettes and the lighter. "I mean it only as a peace offering."

"No, thanks."

Jake turned his face away in deference, his eye on Declan and blew out a plume of smoke. He turned back. "She's all yours, my friend. Go to her. Be good to her. She's too good for an old gigolo like me."

With that, he stuck the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, tilted his fedora rakishly askew with one hand and stepped back into the shadows again.

Miranda left the Jacobis' house about the same time. Lewin walked her down to the driveway where her motorcycle stood.

"We might continue the party tomorrow night, unless you're already engaged," he said.

"Oh, no, I'd love to come again."

"Are you sure? I overheard Trinny telling Mono she was going to rent _The Cutting Edge_."

"Maybe she's getting back at you for renting a hacker flick."

"Yes, and turn the tables so that the male skater is the one saying 'Yeah, right' every five minutes."

"Maybe I'll come just for the fun of her tormenting you. Or maybe I could bring over _The Sixth Sense_."

"'I see dead people!'" Lewin wailed, failing to impersonate Haley-Joel Osmant. "Sure. I have never seen that one."

"You'd still be saying 'Yeah, right' every five minutes."

He took her wrists in both hands and caressed them with his thumbs. "I will enjoy it." He let her go and stepped back as she climbed onto her bike and kick-started it. He walked back to the porch as she switched the headlight on. He turned back to her, the light catching on his lean figure. He lifted his hand and waved it to her, high over his head, as she pulled away.

The following morning, when she came into her office, Peggy checked her voice mail the way she did every morning.

"This is Trinity Jacobi; I'm calling for my father, Jake, to cancel his appointment next Tuesday. Thank you."

She glanced at the vase on her desk. The water still stood, but the rose had vanished.

Later that afternoon, Declan came by her office, looking a little forlorn.

"Peg, I'd, uh, like to apologize," he said, hands in pockets. "I, uh, spied on you and Jake last night."

"Declan, that's okay: you were jealous, and I don't blame you for feeling that way."

He looked up. "Did you love him?"

"Yes. But we both agreed it wasn't meant to be."

"I was wonderin'…you busy tonight?"

She started to say no, but the phone rang. She picked it up.

"Peggy? This is Miranda, They've disappeared."

"Who have?"

"The Jacobis. I went up to bring Lewin…some of the printouts, and they're not there."

"I don't understand."

"What's up?" Declan asked.

Peggy covered the mouthpiece. "The Jacobis have disappeared."

"Wait a minute…"

Miranda's voice cut in. "You don't believe me? Come up to their house and see."

A few minutes later, Declan pulled his truck into the drive of the old Victorian on Cloisson Drive, above the Hollow. Almost before he parked, Peggy threw open the passenger door and jumped out. She ran up the steps to the porch, which showed no signs of repair. Miranda stood on the threshold of the front doorway; no door hung from the rusted hinges. Declan caught up with them.

"It's like they never existed," Miranda said. She reached into her coat and pulled out two folded sheets of paper, which she handed to them. "But this might explain it."

Declan took the papers and unfolded them.

"I went online and hunted up any news items I could on Jake Jacobi, but these were all I could come up with."

The first was an article from the _New York Times_, January 1, 2000: MILLENIUM BABY BORN TO TECH BILLIONAIRE KIMBALL JACOBI. Below it appeared a photo of a newborn child with a face that looked very like Jake's. And the second, more recent, from the _Albany Herald-Tribune_: September 12, 2001: CLOSE CALL FOR LOCAL BILLIONAIRE: JACOBI HAS NEAR MISS IN WTC TRAGEDY. Below that ran several inches of type and a photo of a well-dressed dark gentleman in his late fifties, in tears, holding his twenty-month old son Josef.

The wind rose suddenly and howled through the empty house. Something flew out from the dusty foyer and rolled down the steps. Declan tried to grab it, but Mole, peering out of the truck bed, pricked up his ears and jumped out after it. The mutt chased the dark object and grabbed it. Declan ran after him and cornered him, he wrestled from Mole's jaws…

Jake's leather fedora.

10 November 2058 

Josef  "Jake" Jacobi awoke from the soundest sleep he had known since Charly's death. The alarm clock chattered gleefully. He swatted it into silence and got up.

When he came down for breakfast, he could hardly believe only one night had passed. Over their meal, he told Lewin and Trinny about the dream he'd had.

Lewin looked at his father. "You'd better swallow that last mouthful, _Vati_ ["Dad"]."

Jake obliged. "Why?"

"I had the same dream."

Trinny, who stood leaning against the wall drinking her coffee, said with a cryptic smile, "That's not unusual in close-knit families."

"Why did you have the same dream, too?" Jake asked, looking up at his daughter. She replied only with that smile.

But later, as he headed out for a meeting with his agent, Jake couldn't find his leather fedora…

Afterword:

I know, I know, why would Peggy even get interested in a male slut like Jake. We all do crazy things when we're love-starved, even strong people like Peggy. I should know; I'm right there myself.


End file.
